1
PSYCH.
UBRAm
A
THE GREATEST THING
EVER KNOWN
By RALPH WALDO TRINE.
'* The Life Books:'
I know of nothing in the entire range of
literature more calculated to inspire the young
than the •' Life Books," and to renew the soul
in young and old. — From a Reader.
WHAT ALL THE WORLD'S A-SEEKING.
IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITE; or, Fulness of
Peace, Power, and Plenty.
The ''Life'' Booklets.
THE GREATEST THING EVER KNOWN.
EVERY LIVING CREATURE.
CHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,
NEW YORK.
THE GREATEST THING
EVER KNOWN
By
RALPH WALDO TRINE
The moment we fully
and vita lly realize
WHO AND WHAT WE
ARE, we then begin to
build our own world
even as God builds His
OF THE
OF
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS
auc.
WYCH.
UBfiAiOr
Copyright, 1S9S,
By Ralph Waldo Trine
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. The Greatest Thing Ever Known i
II. Divine Energies in Every-day Life 20
III. The Master's Great but Lost Gift ^8
IV. The Philosopher's Ripest Life
Thought 58
V. Sustained in Peace and Safety
Forever 72
175160
OF
OR'
THE GREATEST THING
EVER KNOWN
'T^HE greatest thing ever known — What is
it? Full surely the answer must be
one that is absolutely universal, both in its
nature and in the possibilities of its applica-
tion. It must be one that can be accepted
wholly and unreservedly, not only by a
single individual, but even by bodies of
individuals, be they the originators of any
particular school of Ethics, the followers of
any particular system of Philosophy, or
even the adherents of any great system of
Religion. It must be one so true in itself
that it can be accepted by all men alike the
world over.
And again, it must be an answer that is
true for no particular period of time, but
equally true for all time — an answer that
was true not only for yesterday, that is true
for to-day, that may be true for to-morrow,
A
2 THE GREATEST THING
but one equally true for yesterday, to-day,
and forever. In laying our foundation,
therefore, it must be laid upon something
as true and as certain as Life itself, and as
eternal as Everlasting Life.
What is as true and as certain as Life itself?
Life, only Life. And what do we mean by
this answer ? Let us give it for a moment
our most careful consideration, for upon
what we find here depends and rests all
that is to follow. Let us start, then, with
that in regard to which all can agree ; some-
thing taken not from mere tradition, from
mere hearsay, but something that comes to
us from no source other than our own
interior consciousness, our own reason and
insight. In other words, let us make our
approach, not from the theological stand-
point, but from that which is far more
certain and satisfactory — the philosophical.
Then, and then only, will we allow pure
reason to be our guide, and then by having
as the earnest desire of both mind and heart,
truth, truth for its own sake, and then for
the sake of its influence upon every-day life,
we will thus allow pure reason to be illumined
by the Light that lighteth every man that
EVER KNOWN 3
Cometh into the world. In the degree that
we open ourselves to and are true to this are
we on sure and safe ground, for thus are we
going directly to the source and the only
source of all true revelation. In the degree,
on the other hand, that we close ourselves or
become untrue to this are we on uncertain
and dangerous ground, and liable to find our-
selves hopelessly floundering in the quagmire
of theological traditions and speculations and
doubts, of which the world has already seen
so much. Pure reason, therefore, shall be
our guide — pure reason illumined by the
Inner Light.
Again, then, What is Life ? Being is Life.
Life is Being. Being, therefore, is our start-
ing-point, and indeed our very foundation
itself.
Each can form his own idea of Being, so
that in reality it needs no defining. By it
we mean that self-existent principle of Life
and all that attends it, without beginning
and without end, the Power that animates
all and so that is the Life of all. In short,
we can scarcely define Being, if indeed it
can be defined, without using the word Life,
and indeed without identifying the two.
4 THE GREATEST THING
Being and Life, then, are one and the
same.
It is Being that projects itself into
ex-istence. Being, acting through its own
intelligence, prompted by love, projected by
will, goes out and takes form. We cannot
say that it enters into form, for until it pro-
jects itself into existence there is no form^
but form comes by virtue of Being, the self-
existent Principle of Life and Power mani-
festing itself in existence. So in a sense
Life, which is one with Being, is the soul,
and form, of whatever nature the body.
Only as Being projects itself into exist-
ence are we able to know it. We can know
the fact that Being is^ but only as it mani-
fests itself in form are we able to know it
itself.
Being is 07ie^ not many. As Being is the
source of all Life, there is, then, only one Life,
and this Being is the Life of all. " The one
Divine Being; and this alone is the true
Reality in all Existence, and so remains in
all Eternity." And there is nothing real
that is, or, indeed, that can be, outside of it.
True, then, are the words of one of the most
highly illumined philosophers of modern
EVER KNOWN 5
times — " Thus we have these two elements :
Being, as it is essentially and in itself; and
Form, which is assumed by the former in
consequence of Existence. But how have
we expressed ourselves? What is it that
assumes a form ? Answer : Being, as it
exists in itself, without any change what-
ever in its inward. Essential Nature. But
what, then, is there in Existence ? Answer :
Nothing else than the One Eternal and
Unchangeable Being, besides which there
can be nothing."
This Being which is Infinite is in truth,
then, the Infinite Being, and this Infinite
Being is what we mean by God — each using
the term that appeals most to himself.
Literally, • the I Am, as is signified by the
name Jehovah, which is derived in the
Hebrew from the word To Be. God, then,
is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit of
Life which fills all in existence with himself
alone, so that all is He, since He is All. If
God is all, then all must be He, and from
this fact there is no escape, and no other
conclusion can be arrived at which does not
do violence to all rational thought. There
are those — and to such these pages are not
6 THE GREATEST THING
addressed, for so limited are they in com-
prehension, or so closed to truth and hence
so engrossed in bigotry, that they either can
or will see nothing that may be opposed to
their present ideas — there are those who say
that God is all, and immediately begin to fill
up the universe with that which God is not.
Again, there are those open to and eagerly
seeking for the highest truth who say : But
evil is not God, and how then can God be
«//, for surely there is such a thing as evil.
Certainly evil is not God, nor has God any-
thing to do with evil. Evil is simply the
result of the temporary perversion of the
good, and as such must either cease or in
time die at its own hands. As such, then,
it has no esse?itial reality, for that which has
essential reality has neither beginning nor
end.
Man is the only one who has to do with
evil, he alone is its author ; man, who in his
thought separates himself from Divine Being,
in whom alone true happiness and blessed-
ness can be found. Regarding the mere
bodily existence as his real life, he tries to
find pleasure and happiness entirely through
these channels, and many times by violating
EVER KNOWN 7
the higher laws of his being, and thus what
we term evil enters in. But though man
has perfect freedom in all his thoughts and
acts, God will suffer no such violation. And
so, from the pain and suffering that result
from the violation of the higher laws of his
being, he is pushed on in his thought and
through this in his life to the Reality of his
being, and finds that only in conscious union
with God true pleasure and blessedness lie,
as God surely intends. True, then, evil is
not God, nor has God anything to do with
evil; for man alone has to do with it, so
long, and only so long, as he lives his life
out of a conscious union with the life of
God.
Infinite Being, God, then, is the one and
the only Life. You and I in our true selves
are Life. It cannot be truly said that we
have life, for we are Life; Life th^t mani-
fests itself in the form in existence that we
denominate by the term body. And as the
Infinite Being, the Infinite Life, God, is the
I Am, the life of all in existence, then we
indeed are parts of the Infinite Being, the
Infinite Life, the I Am, of the very God
himself. And thus it is that your life and
8 THE GREATEST THING
mine is one with the life of God. By this
we do not mean the mere body, but the
Real Self that takes to itself the form —
body. It is utterly impossible that there
be any real life that is not one with the
life of God. And in this sense it is true
that the life of man and the life of God
are essentially and necessarily one and the
same. In essence they are one and the
same; they differ not in quality, for this it
is impossible rationally even to conceive of.
There is a difference — it is a difference
simply in degree^ not in essence or kind.
It is only by reason of our own thought
that our life is separate from the life of
God, only by reason of our own thought
that we live in this separation, if indeed
we can use the term live where the full
life is not consciously realised and enjoyed.
Truly, then, " In Him we live and move
and have our being."
We never could have been, and never can
be, other than Divine Being. And I fully
agree with the thought expressed in a recent
letter from Prof. Max Miiller in which
he says : " I cannot accept Athanasius
when he says that we can become gods;
EVER KNOWN 9
man cannot say, become God, because he
is God; what else could he be, if God is
the only true and real being?"
How is it, then, I hear it asked, that
man has the limitations that he has, that
he is subject to fears and forebodings, that
he is liable to sin and error, that he is the
victim of disease and suffering? There is
but one reason. He is not living, except
in rare cases here and there, in the conscious
realisation of his own true Being, and hence
of his own true Self. We must in thought
be conscious of who and what we are before
the qualities and powers of our real being,
and hence our real selves, actualise or even
manifest themselves. Says one of the most
highly illumined seers of modern times :
"The True Life and its Blessedness con-
sists in a union with the Unchangeable and
Eternal; but the Eternal can be appre-
hended 07ily by Thought^ and is in no
other way approachable by us."
Thought is the atmosphere, the element,
in a sense the very substance, of the phase
of Divine Being that we call human life.
How much it is likewise that of other
forms of Divine Being in existence, as we
lo THE GREATEST THING
see it in the various manifestations of life
around us, we cannot be so fully certain
of. But certain it is that through thought,
and through thought alone, we are able to
conceive of Divine Being as the Infinite
Spirit and Essence of Life, and then to see
clearly that it is the Life of our Life, and
then to live in the realisation of our one-
ness with it, and in this way allow the
Divine Word to become incarnate in us
by being thus fully and completely manifest
in us, precisely as it became manifest and
hence incarnate in the Christ Jesus, as we
shall hereafter find.
When Divine Being manifests itself in
physical human form, its inward essential
nature or reality changes not, for this from
its very nature it is impossible for it in any
way to do. It does, however, have to mani-
fest itself through the agency of physical
senses, and precisely for this reason is it
that for a time our real inward Essential
Nature and Life is concealed from us, but
this again only by reason of our limited
comprehension.
When we are born into the world of
Nature we see and cognise through and by
EVER KNOWN ii
means of the physical senses, and the
natural physical world becomes to us for a
time the real world. By-and-by, however,
through these very senses we are able to
conceive of the One and Eternal Source
of Life as our real and therefore our only
life, and then through them to hold our-
selves in this living realisation. Hence,
first that which is natural and theii that
which is spiritual is necessarily as well as
literally and philosophically true. Happy,
however, is the man who dwells not long
as the purely natural man, but is early
transformed into the spiritual, and so in
whom the Divine Word early becomes
incarnate.
Blessed state indeed, says the thoughtful
and earnest seeker for the best things in
life, and more to be prized than all else
besides; but if this state is really possible
of realisation, what can be said regarding
the method of entering into it? There is
only one thing in all the wide universe
that will enable you, as well as all the world,
to do it effectually. " Be ye therefore trans-
formed by the renewing of your minds."
This is the force, the transforming power,
12 THE GREATEST THING
so far as the form of life we denominate
by the term human is concerned, this and
this alone.
True, then, and most welcome is the
great fact of facts, of which the world is
beginning to become so conscious to-day,
that "The mind is everything; what you
think, you become." Mortal mind? says
one. Yes and no. Strictly speaking, there
is no such thing as mortal mind — there is
only Divine Mind. When in our own
thought, and by reason of our limited
comprehension, we shut ourselves off and
look upon ourselves as individual physical
beings, we give birth to a temporary mode
of thought that might well be termed
mortal mind, or, rather, the product of
mortal mind. But it is at first natural, and
it is only by using this "mortal mind" that
it is able to be transformed, and hence re-
newed into the Divine Mind. So by wisely
using that which we have, the natural, we
are transformed from that which is most
apparent, and consequently that which we
think we are, the mortal, the physical, into
that which from all eternity we in reality
are, and never except in our own minds
EVER KNOWN 13
can get away from, — the Spiritual, the
Divine.
It is through this instrumentality that the
Divine Life within us, the Divine Life with
all its ever-ready-to-break-forth glories and
powers, is enabled to be changed from a
mere passive and hence potential actuality,
and to burst forth into the full splendours
of conscious, active life. Surely, then,
thought rightly directed and rightly used
has within it the true regenerating and
hence redeeming power; through it and it
alone are we able to make for ourselves a
new heaven and a new earth, or, rather, by
thus finding the kingdom of God, and
through it entering into the conscious
realisation of the heavenly state, are we
able to make for ourselves a new earth by
actualising the kingdom of Heaven in our
lives while living on the earth, which, when
once truly realised, can never be lost.
The majority of people are not awake; it
is only here and there that we find one
even partially awake. Practically all of us,
as a result, are living lives that are unworthy
almost the name of lives, compared with
those we might be living, and that lie within
14 THE GREATEST THING
our easy grasp. While it is true that each
life is in and of Divine Being, hence always
one with it, in order that this great fact may
bear fruit in individual lives, each one must,
as we have already said, be conscious of it,
he must know it in thought, and then live
continually in this consciousness.
An eagle has been chained for many
months to the perch just outside his cage;
so long has he been conscious of the fact
that he is bound by the little silver chain
which holds him, that he has given up all
efforts to escape, almost forgetting, perhaps,
that the power of flight is longer his. One
day a link of the little chain opens, but,
living so long in the consciousness that he
is held in captivity, he makes no effort to
escape. The freedom of the heavens is now
his, were he only conscious of his power.
But day after day he sits sullenly longing for
freedom, but remaining a captive still. One
morning, however, he ventures a little farther
out on his perch than usual, when suddenly
a strange consciousness is his — he sets his
wings, and the captivity which has held him
for months will perchance know him no
more forever.
EVER KNOWN 15
And so it is with man. On account of
the false gods that tradition and prevailing
theology have brought him he knows not
himself, and not knowing himself he knows
neither his powers nor his possibilities. The
human soul is held captive. An opaque
physical structure is about all that he can
be said truly to give evidence of. The day
comes, however, when in his thought he
moves out a little farther than is usual, then
a little farther and a little farther. The
Inner Light is now moving within, he catches
at first a little glimpse of his real Essential
Being, then a little more and a little more,
and by-and-by the fact of his essential
oneness with the Infinite Life and Power
bursts in upon, illumines, and takes posses-
sion of his soul. In bewilderment, and al-
most afraid to utter it at first, he cries aloud,
"O God, I am one with Thee!" Enrap-
tured by this new consciousness, he holds to
the thought of this oneness, and living con-
tinually in this thought his life forever after
flows steadily on in one constant realisation
of his oneness with Divine Being. And so
"the first man, [which] is of the earth
earthy," is changed into "the second man,
i6 THE GREATEST THING
[which] is the Lord from Heaven," and there-
after the Christ sits enthroned.
Compared with the new life that he is now
continually living, the old life of ignorance
with its consequent limitations, which can
now know him no more forever, deserved
only the name of death, for, in a sense, he
was indeed dead unto life, and only he who
lives in the conscious realisation of his one-
ness with the One and Only Life can be said
truly to be born into Life. He is born into
the world and lives in the world, but into
consciously real and eternal Life he has not
yet entered. He is born the Adam man,
but within him the Christ man has not
awakened, or, rather, he has not yet awak-
ened to the Christ within, and so the Christ
man is not yet born, and sitting therefore in
darkness he knows not yet the glorious
realities of life.
"I am thine own Spirit" are the words
that the Infinite Father by means of the
Inner Voice is continually speaking to every
human soul. He who will hear can hear,
and through it step out into fulness of Hfe.
We hear much in the prevailing crude and
EVER KNOWN 17
irrational theology in regard to the " fall of
man " ; but it is only as man has departed
from the Inner Light, and gone after false
man-made gods, that anything that might
rationally be termed a " fall " has come about.
Separating our lives in thought from their
oneness with Divine Life is what constitutes,
and what alone will ever constitute, the fall
of man. But the teaching that has come to
us through past generations, which has as its
dominant keynote, poor worm and miserable
sinner, death and the grave, is as false as it
is pernicious and therefore damnable in its
influences. These old thoughts and words
have had the influence of taking heaven out
of earth and populating the earth with doubt,
and error, and sin, and crime. New and
true thoughts and words will make literally
a new heaven and a new earth.
Man is essentially Divine, actually part of
the Infinite God, and so, essentially good.
When he severs his connection in conscious-
ness with the Divine, then and then only do
doubt, and error, and sin, and crime, with
their consequent pain, suffering, disease, and
despair, enter into his life. Only a pure and
radical infidel — by this we mean one who is
B
i8 THE GREATEST THING
in reality such, for there are many who are
called infidels, even by many avowed re-
ligionists, who live a far truer religion than
they themselves live — can rationally hold to
the doctrine of original sin, with its conse-
quent poor worm and miserable sinner. The
religious teacher who professes to believe in
God as the One Divine and Supreme Being,
and at the same time holds to this irrational
doctrine, is many times more a disciple of
the Devil, whom he recognises and whose
power he evidently respects, than he is of
the Infinite God in whom he professes to
believe. He and he alone it is who finds a
place for what he and his theology term the
Devil. The one who truly believes in God
as the only true and real being and the
source of all life and power can indeed find
no place for the Devil. He sees and recog-
nises the evil that comes from lives that lose
for a time their conscious connection with
the Supreme Source of their being, but he
can find no place for any other essential and
abiding Reality.
And as this separation from God is made
entirely through the instrumentality of the
mind, he sees that making one's conscious
EVER KNOWN 19
connection again with God — the true and
only true redemption — must also be through
the instrumentahty of the mind. BeHev-
ing in the God in whom he beHeves, ay,
knowing the God whom he knows^ he sees
no place for an atonement in the sense
of appeasing the wrath of an angry God.
Knowing the God whom he knows, he
shares not in those barbaric notions. He
does see, however, that redemption can and
must come through living in the con-
scious at-one-ment with the Father's life.
He recognises it as the natural method that
the Adam man be first born, with freedom of
thought and consequently freedom of action,
and that from him the Christ man then
comes forth into consciousness. He recog-
nises that it is God's, and consequently
nature's and evolution's method, that "the
first man is of the earth earthy, the second
man is the Lord from heaven." He recog-
nises the fact that kittens are born blind, not
because their parents or even their grand-
parents sinned, but because it is simply
natural for them to be born blind, and that
in process of time their eyes will open. He
also recognises that, on account of our limited
.r^GiTYJ
20 THE GREATEST THING
comprehension, the "natural" appears first
and then the "spiritual," but in reality the
spiritual is from the very first incarnated
within, and only because it is, can it in pro-
cess of time, either sooner or later, assume
the ascendency by changing from potential
into active life.
Once in a while there comes into the
world one who from the very first recognises
no separation of his life from the Father's
life, and who dwells continually in this living
realisation ; and by bringing anew to the
world this great fact, and showing forth the
works that will always and inevitably follow
this realisation, he becomes in a sense a
world's saviour, as did Jesus, who, through
the completeness of his realisation of the
Father's life incarnate in him, became the
Christ Jesus. He in this way pointed out
to the world how all men can enter into
the realisation of the Christ-life and thus
be saved from all impulse to sin. And so
instead of coming to appease the vengeance
of an angry God — difficult for one who has
any adequate conception of God even to
conceive of — he brought to the world, by
exemplifying in his own life as well as by
EVER KNOWN 21
teaching to all who will hear his real message^
the method whereby all of us can enter into
the full and complete realisation of our one-
ness with the life of the tender and loving
Infinite Father.
Redeemed from the bondage of the senses
through which alone sin comes, and born
into the heavenly state, into life eternal, is
every one who comes into the same relations
with the Father, and hence into the same
realisation of his oneness with the Father's
life, that Jesus came into. It is difficult,
however, to see how any one will be re-
deemed from the bondage of sin and enter
into the heavenly state simply by believing
that Jesus entered into it while here. No
amount of believing that he lived the life he
lived will take any one into the heavenly
state, but living the life that Jesus lived will
take every one who lives it there, in any age
and in any clime, even whether or not he
knows that such a man as Jesus ever lived.
The world has less need for a perverted
and hence perverting doctrine of " vicarious
atonement " that bodies of men have formu-
lated by either intentionally or ignorantly
dragging the teachings, as also the life, of
22 THE GREATEST THING
the Master down to a purely material inter-
pretation — less need, most truly, has the
world for this perverting doctrine than it
has for the great vitalising fact of a con-
scious, living at-one-ment with the Father's
life, as every one whose spiritual sense is
at all unfolded will inevitably get from the
life and teachings of the Master, if indeed
he is more interested in the real living truth
that he taught than he is in the almost
numberless man-made theological theories
and dogmas regarding it.
In order that we may ever keep our stand-
ing ground clearly in mind, let us now gather
into a single view the substance of what we
have endeavoured thus far to present.
From everlasting to everlasting is Being,
self-existent, without beginning and without
end. Depending upon nothing outside of
itself and the essential essence, the very life
of all that through it comes into existence,
it is therefore Infinite Being. Existing at
first as pure spirit, it is therefore Divine
Being. Literally the I Am, the Divine
Jehovah, the Infinite God. Then, animated
by love and acting through its own volition,
EVER KNOWN 23
it projects itself into existence and assumes
the various forms we see in the universe
about us, including ourselves. But by the
act of projecting itself into existence, the In-
finite Divine Being does not change in the
least its essential inner nature, as indeed it
would be impossible for it to do. What,
then, in reality is there in existence? Only
Divine Being, the Infinite God in all his
manifold manifestations; and thus it re-
mains through all eternity, as must neces-
sarily be from its very nature, and otherwise
it could not be. God, then, is the Infinite
Being, the Infinite Spirit which is the
essential essence, the life of all, which
therefore fills all the universe with Himself
alone, so that all is He, since He is all.
But when Divine Being incarnates itself
in flesh and forms for its use a physical
body — a human body, as we call it — it
necessarily has to manifest through the in-
strumentality of physical senses, and, though
Divine Being is infinite, the vision of man
is limited, and for a time his true inner Life
(always Divine Being) is concealed from him,
for he naturally interprets everything from
the standpoint of the physical. First that
24 THE GREATEST THING
which is natural, and man knows himself
only as a natural physical being, differing
not essentially from the material universe
about him. As he looks out, however, he
sees that he differs from other forms in ex-
istence, in that he has a mind through which
thought is engendered, a mind that grows by
using. Then contemplating himself and
longing for the truth of his existence,
gradually there dawns upon his conscious-
ness the fact that his life is Divine Being,
that other than this it has never been — except
in his own mind when in his thought he
mistook the mere physical form in existence
as the real essential life itself, thus separating
his life from the Infinite Divine Life. He
thus realises that in God he lives, moves,
and has his being, that God is the life
of his life, his very life itself; and thus
he comes in time into the conscious,
living realisation of his oneness with the
Infinite Life and Power. And so we find
it true— first the natural man, then the
spiritual.
Through thought, and through thought
alone, the second man, the Lord from
Heaven, is gradually evolved out of the
EVER KNOWN 25
first man, which is of the earth earthy.
Through a perfectly natural process of
evolution, out of the first man Adam —
sense perception — is evolved the Christ
man — Divine self-realisation. Impossible,
however, is it for anything to be evolved
that was not first involved; and so man
finds that the Lord Christ has always been
within and he has known it not.
It is the same to-day as it was many years
ago with Jacob when he said, "Surely the
Lord is in this place; and I knew it not."
This and all that followed he found simply
by using the stones of the place where he
was; for with the stones of the place he
made for himself a pillow, and it was while
sleeping on this pillow that he beheld the
ladder set upon the earth and reaching to
the heavens, upon which the angels were
ascending and descending, and thus it was
that he entered into communion with the
life of the heavens. Later, then, he trans-
formed the pillow into a pillar that served
as a guide to other men.
And so with every human soul — we must
use simply the stones of the place where we
are. The only stones with which human
26 THE GREATEST THING
life can build is thought. It and it alone
is the moulding, the creative power —
earnest, sincere thought of the place where
we are, this constitutes the stones of the
place where we are and with which we
can make a pillow upon which for the
time being to rest. Through this and this
alone will the life of the heavens be
opened to us ; for angels ascending —
aspiration — will in time bring to us angels
descending — inspiration. Then with Jacob
of old we will cry out, " Behold, the Lord
is in this place; and I knew it not."
Then our pillow, the thought that gives
us the knowledge that the Infinite Divine
Life is always within, the Essential Essence
of the human soul itself, we can convert
into a pillar, a pillar that will be a guide
to lead other men into the same realisation
and life.
And so the entire problem of human life
is wonderfully simple and easy if we are
but true to the highest within us, and keep
ourselves free from the various perplexing
and mystifying theological theories and
dogmas, which ordinarily give merely a
promise of spiritual awakening, realisation.
EVER KNOWN 27
and power in some other form of life,
rather than actualising it here and now in
this Hfe.
But only as man becomes conscious of
the Lord Christ within, only as he becomes
conscious, — realises in thought that he is
one with the Infinite Life and Power, —
does this great fact become a moving and
mighty force in the affairs of his daily life.
Until this is true he remains in the condition
of the eagle, which, though unchained, think-
ing nevertheless that he was still chained,
remained in captivity when the freedom of
the heavens awaited simply the spreading
of his wings.
Although the answer to our title has been
given both in Imes and between lines long
before this, it may be an aid to us,
especially in making practical what is to
follow, to put it as best we can into a
definite form : The greatest thing ever
known — indeed, the greatest thing that ever
can be known — is that in our real essential
nature we are one with the Infinite Life
and Power, and that by coming into, and
dwelling continually in, the conscious^ living
realisation of this great fact, we enable to
28 THE GREATEST THING
be manifested unto us and actualised within
us the qualities and powers of the Divine
Life, and this in the exact degree of the
completeness of this realisation on our
part.
EVER KNOWN 29
II
DIVINE ENERGIES IN EVERY-DAY LIFi
A ND what, let us ask, is the result and
hence the value of this realisation ?
For unless it is of value in the affairs of
every-day life, it is then a mere dead
theory, and consequently of no real value.
Use must be the final test of everything,
and if it has no actual use, or if no visible
results follow its use, we had better not
spend time with it, for it is then not
founded upon truth.
First, let it be said, it is not the mere
intellectual recognition, merely the dead
theory, but the conscious, vital and living
realisation of this great truth, that makes it
of value, and that makes it show forth in
the affairs of every-day life. This it is, and
this alone, that gives true blessedness, for
this is none other than the finding of the
kingdom of God, and when this is once
found and lived in, all other things literally
and necessarily follow. Through this the
3Q THE GREATEST THING
qualities and powers of the Divine Life are
more and more realised and actualised, and
through their leading we are led into the
possession of all other things.
He who comes into this full and living
realisation of his oneness with the Divine
Life is brought at once into right relations
with himself, with his fellow-men, and with
the laws of the universe about him. He
lives now in the inner, the real life, and
whatever is in the interior must necessarily
take form in the exterior, for all life is
from within out. There is no true life in
regard to which this law does not hold.
And if the will of God is done in the
inward life, then is it necessarily done in
all things of the outward life, and the
results are always manifest. Thus and
thus alone it is that men have become
prophets, seers, and saviours ; they have
become what the world calls the "elect"
of God, because in their own lives they
first elected God and lived their lives in
His life. And thus it is that to-day men
can become prophets, seers, and saviours,
for the laws of the Divine Life and the
relations of what we term the human life
EVER KNOWN 31
to it are identically the same to-day as
they have been in all time past and will
be in all time to come. The Divine Being
changes not; it is man alone who changes.
It is solely by virtue of man's leaving
the inner life of the spirit and thus depart-
ing from God, or by virtue of his not yet
finding this real life, that sin and error,
pain and disease, fears and forebodings,
have crept as naturally and as necessarily
as that effect follows cause into his life ;
only by closing his eyes to the inner light,
by shutting his ears to the inner voice,
that, although he has eyes to see, yet he
sees not, and, although he has ears to hear,
yet he hears not. And it is only by unit-
ing his life with the Divine Life, and thus
living again the life of the spirit, that these
things will go, even as they have come.
All the evil, unhappiness, misery, and
want in the world are attributable to man,
and are the direct results of his taking his
life, either consciously or unconsciously,
either directly or indirectly, out of harmony
with the Power that works for righteousness
and consequently for wholeness and perfec-
tion. And when our life is lived in the
32 THE GREATEST THING
life of God, and God's will therefore
becomes our will, all is and necessarily
must be well with us, for contrary to His
will it is impossible that anything should
ever come to pass. And thus it is that he
who seeks first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness shall have all other things
added unto him. The soul, the real life,
is Divine, and by allowing it to become
translucent to Infinite Spirit by living con-
tinually in this conscious union with Divine
Being it reveals all things to us. Things
become hidden, mysteries fill and un-
certainties pervade life only as we turn
away from the inner light and life; there
is nothing that is hidden of itself; to God
all things are known, and he who con-
sciously lives his life in the life of God
sees with the Divine vision that reveals all
things to him. He who lives continually
under this Divine guidance enters thereby
into the realm of the highest wisdom, and
even in the most trivial things of every-day
life he never finds himself in a state of
doubt or perplexity, for he always knows
what to do and how to do it.
He has no regrets for the past, because
EVER KNOWN
33
before he entered into his present conscious-
ness he was in a sense dead unto life, and
all regrets that he might have for the past
'are now swallowed up in the joys that the
new birth that has brought him into fulness
of life continually spreads before his every
step. He has neither fears nor forebodings
in regard to the future, for he knows that
contrary to God's will, which is now his
will, nothing can ever come to pass. Peace,
therefore, a full and abiding peace, is con-
tinually his.
As all life is from within out, and as this
is absolutely true in regard to the physical
body, the fountain of Divine Life that has
been opened up within him, which of itself
can admit of no disease or imperfection of
any kind, will allow only healthy conditions
to be externalised in his body; and where
unhealthy conditions have been built into it
before his entrance into the new life, the life
that now courses through it will in time
drive them out by entirely replacing the
diseased structure with that which is pure
and whole.
A continually growing sense of power is
his, for he is now working in conjunction
C
34 THE GREATEST THING
with the Infinite God, and with God all
things are possible. In material things he is
not lacking, for all things are from this one
Infinite Source, and, guided by the Divine
Wisdom and sustained by the Divine Power
that are now his, in a perfectly natural and
normal way he finds that an abundance of
all things is his, always in hand in sufficient
time to supply all his material needs, and
never is there lack when the time comes, if
he simply does each day what his hands
find to do. Sure always of this unfailing
source of supply, he does not give himself
to the accumulation ai d the hoarding of
great material possessions, thereby robbing
and enslaving the real life.
His thoughts grow more and more into
the nature of their Divine Source, and as
thoughts are forces^ and as in the degree that
they are spiritualised do they become ever
more effective in their operations, so through
their instrumentality is he able to mould
more and more effectively the every-day
conditions of life. And so as he enters into
this new Hfe he finds that all things of the
outer life fall into line ; for as is the inner^
so always and necessarily is the outer.
EVER KNOWN 35
These truths will come as new revelations
to many, and again to many they will come
merely as agents to strengthen and possibly
to arouse to renewed life the realisations of
which they are already more or less con-
scious. In themselves, however, they are not
new, but as old as the world. They are the
real spirit of true Christianity, not, how-
ever, of the Christianity that the majority of
people conventionally hold, which in many
respects is as radically inconsistent as it is
void of results, but the great transcendent
truths of our relations with the Father's life
that Jesus taught.
They are likewise the real essential spirit
of all the great religions of the world, and as
all religions in their purity are from the same
source, — God speaking through the minds of
those who have come into a sufficient union
with Him to hear and to interpret His voice,
the one universal source of all true inspira-
tion and all true revelation, — so far as their
fundamental principles are concerned they
are necessarily the same.
And the great spiritual awakening, the
beginnings of which we are witnessing in
all parts of the world to-day, is evidence
36 THE GREATEST THING
that the Divine Breath is stirring in the
minds and hearts of men and women in a
manner such as it has rarely if ever stirred
before. Men and women are literally find-
ing God. They are breaking through the
mere letter and form of an old and too-long-
held ecclesiastical theorising and dogmatism
into the real vital spirit of the religion of
the living and transcendent God. They are
waking here and there and everywhere to
the realisation of their oneness with the
living God. Their lives are being com-
pletely filled with this realisation, and as
a consequence they are showing forth the
works of God.
They are leaving the old one-day-in-seven,
some-other-world religion, and they are find-
ing the joys as well as the practicability of
an every-day, this-world religion. They are
passing out of the religion of death and
possible glory hereafter, into the religion of
life and joy and glory here and now, to-day
and every day, as well as hereafter and for-
evermore. With this new religion of the
living God and the spiritual power that
through it is being made active in their
lives, they are moulding in detail all of
EVER KNOWN 37
the affairs of every-day life, proving thereby
that their rehgion is the reHgion of Hfe.
And any system of reHgion that does not
enable its possessor to do this is simply not
religion, and we should no longer desecrate
the word by applying it to any such hollow
mockeries.
To this old semblance of religion those
who are thus entering into this new and
larger religion of life will never return, nor
can they, any more than the chick can enter
within the confines of its shell again after
it has been once born into life. Having
found the pearl, the shell for them must
perish ; or rather, as it is of no farther value
to them, it perishes simply by the operation
of natural law. Centred thus in the Infinite,
working now in conscious harmony with
Divine forces, they ever after rule the world
from within.
38 THE GREATEST THING
III
THE master's great BUT LOST GIFT
'T^HE conclusions we have arrived at thus
far we have arrived at independently
of any authority outside of our own reason
and insight. It is always of interest as well
as of greater or less value to compare our
own conclusions with those of others whose
opinions we value. It would indeed be a
matter of exceeding great interest to com-
pare those we have reached with those of
a number whose opinions come with greater
or less authority to all the world. Space
dots not permit this, however, and I propose
that we give the balance of our time to the
consideration, though necessarily brief con-
sideration, of two such ; one universally
regarded as one of the most highly illumined
teachers, if not the most highly illumined,
the world has ever known, the Christ Jesus;
the other universally rcL^arded as one of the
most highly illumined philosophers the world
has ever known, the philosopher Fichte.
EVER KNOWN 39
And in these two we have the advantage of
the life and teachings of one who Hved and
taught nearly nineteen hundred years ago,
and one who lived and taught a trifle less
than a hundred years ago. By selecting
these, let it also be said, we have the ad-
vantage of two whose lives fully manifested
the truth of that which they taught.
In considering the life and teachings of
Jesus, let us consider them not as dull ex-
positors interpret and represent them, but
as he himself gave them to the world.
Certainly Jesus was Divine; but he was
Divine, as he himself clearly taught, in just
the same sense that you and I and every
human soul is Divine. He differed from us,
however, in that he had come into a far
clearer and fuller realisation of his divinity
than we have come into, as indeed his life so
clearly indicates. Jesus was God manifest
in the flesh, as indeed every one must be
who comes into the full realisation of his
oneness with God, as Jesus himself again so
clearly taught.
In the thoroughly absurd, illogical, and
positively demoralising doctrine of "vicarious
atonement," as given us by early ecclesi-
40 THE GREATEST THING
astical bodies by perverting the real teach-
ings of Jesus even to the extent of calHng
interpolations in the New Testament to their
aid, we certainly cannot believe. Many do,
however, believe that it has done more harm
to the real teachings of Jesus, has been more
productive of scepticism and infidelity, than
all other causes combined. It is a doctrine
that can be formulated only by those who
have no spiritual insight themselves, and
who therefore drag the teachings of the
Master down to a purely material interpreta-
tion because of their inability to give them
the spiritual interpretation that he intended
they should have.
If his mission was not that of vicarious
atonement, not for the purpose of appeasing
the wrath and indignation of an angry God
and thus reconciling Him to His children,
what then was it ? Clearly his mission was
that of a Redeemer as he gave himself out
to be — a Redeemer to bring the children of
men back to their Father. And how did he
purpose to do this ? Clearly by having them
consciously unite their lives with the Father's
life, even as he had united his. The kingdom
of God and His righteousness is not only
EVER KNOWN 41
what he came to teach, but what he clearly
and unmistakably taught.
That he plainly and unequivocally taught
his disciples that this was his mission is
evidenced by numerous sentences such as
the following, occurring all through the
gospels: Matt. iv. 23, "jesus went about
in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom,"
etc. . . . Luke viii. i, "He went about
through cities and villages, preaching and
bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of
God." . . . Luke iv. 43, "But he said
unto them : I must preach the good tidings
of the kingdom of God to other cities also,
for therefore was I sentT . . . Luke ix. 2,
"And he sent them forth to preach the
kingdom of God and to heal the sick." . . .
Matt. xxiv. 14, "And this gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached in the whole
world, for a testimony unto all nations," etc.
... In more than thirty places in the first
three gospels do we find Jesus thoroughly
explaining to his disciples his especial
mission — to preach the glad tidings of the
coming of the kingdom of God ; and even
before he entered upon his public work, we
42 THE GREATEST THING
hear John the Baptist going before him and
sa) ing, " Repent ye ; for the kingdom of
Heaven is at hand."
What did Jesus mean by the kingdom of
God, or, as he sometimes expressed it, the
kingdom of Heaven? As an answer, and
an answer better than any speculations in
regard to it, let us again take his own words :
" Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, Lo
there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God is
within you." He taught only what he him-
self had found, the conscious union with the
Father's life as the one and all-inclusive
thing. Witii Jesus from the very first, only
in union with God was there reality. And
this life in the Father's life seemed nothing
at all marvellous to him; it was perfecdy
natural, and the only life he knew. Hence
he could not say otherwise than that he and
the Father were one. His vision was so
clear and his already realised Divine life was
so full and complete, that he knew that it
was utterly impossible for his life to be with-
out the Father's life, as we indeed shall
know when our vision becomes clear and
we enter into the same fully realised union
with it.
EVER KNOWN 43
This great knowledge came to Jesus not
through intellectual speculation and still less
through any communication from without;
it came to him through his own interior
consciousness ; to all appearances he was
born with it. He was born with a peculiar
aptitude for discerning things of the Spirit,
just as among us some are born with a
peculiar aptitude for one thing and others
for other things. But so great was this
power naturally in Jesus that in it we may
justly say he had a great advantage over most
people born into the world, and for this
reason was he all the more able and all the
greater reason was there for him to be one
of the great world Teachers and hence
Redeemers. He was indeed Immanuel — •
God with us.
Jesus, I repeat, never speaks of his life in
any other connection than as one with the
Father's life.
In reply to a question from Thomas in
the fourteenth chapter of John, he says, " If
ye had known me, ye would have known
my Father also : from henceforth ye know
him and have seen him." Philip, who was
standing near, unable to comprehend the
44 THE GREATEST THING
interior meaning of the Master's words, said
unto him : " Lord, show us the Father, and
it sufficeth us." Jesus, somewhat surprised
that he had not made himself clear to them,
replied : '' Have I been so long time with
you, and dost thou not know me, Philip?
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ;
how sayest thou, Show us the Father? Be-
lievest thou not that I am in the Father, and
the Father in me ? The words I speak unto
you I speak not from myself : but the Father
abiding in me doeth His work. Believe me
that I am in the Father and the Father in
me : or believe me for the very works' sake."
But if his especial mission was to preach
the good tidings of the kingdom of God,
why, I hear it asked, did he claim that only
through him can we come unto the kingdom,
as he indeed says in his conversation with
Philip and Thomas immediately preceding
the part just quoted : " I am the way, the
truth, and the life ; no one cometh unto the
Father but by me.' Simply because it was
the living truth that he brought, which was
and evermore is to redeem men by uniting
them in mind and heart with the Father.
His realised oneness with the Father's life
EVER KNOWN 45
was the way, the truth, and the life, and
only by going over the same path that he
himself had trod can anyone be truly united
with the Father. He found this great, vital
and redeeming truth nowhere else in the
world ; he had to speak as one standing
alone, and in this sense he spoke most truly
and most literally when he said, " No one
Cometh unto the Father but by me." And
in order to point out his life, his realised
oneness with the Father's life, as the way,
the truth, and the life, he spoke and indeed
had to speak as he did, even at the risk of
being misunderstood and having his words
taken in a purely material sense, as was the
tendency of the spiritual poverty of the age,
and indeed as his very disciples so often
.interpreted his words, as we have but
recently seen. In order to give forth the
spiritual teachin^^s which he gave, he had
to use the language and the illustrations
that their material minds could grasp, and
in this way make his teachings doubly liable'
to a purely material interpretation.
"I am the bread of life," said he to those
assembled about him ; " your fathers did eat
the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
46 THE GREATEST THING
This is the bread which cometh down out of
heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die. I am the living bread which came down
out of heaven : if any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever : yea, and the bread
which I will give is my flesh, for the life of
the world." The Jews taking his words in a
material sense argued one with another and
said : " How can this man give us his flesh
to eat ? " Jesus simply reaffirmed his state-
ment, saying : " Verily, verily, I say unto
you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
man and drink his blood, ye have not life in
yourselves. . . . For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed." Literally,
" My flesh is the true food, and my blood is
the true drink. He that eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in
him. As the living Father sent me, and I
live because of the Father, so he that eateth
me, he also shall live because of me."
And many of his disciples, even, when
they heard him speaking in this way, said
among themselves, "This is a hard saying;
who can hear him ? " — who can understand
him ? Jesus, quickly perceiving that they were
again dragging his words down to a material
EVER KNOWN 47
interpretation, asked them if what he had
just said caused them to stumble, and then^
in order that they get his real meanings he
said, " It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the
flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I
have spoken unto you are spirit and are Hfe."
And so all except those who are wholly
spiritually, not to say even mentally, blind,
can readily see that what Jesus meant to say,
and what he actually did say, was, the words
that he spoke to them of his oneness with the
Father's life were the true meat and the true
drink, of which, unless a man ate and drank,
he had not life in himself, but that these
were able to give him life and life eternal.
" He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my
blood abideth in me, and I in him." Or,
reversing the expression. He that dwelleth
in me and I in him, he it is that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood. "The
words that I have spoken unto you, (they)
are spirit and (they) are life." "As the
living Father hath sent me, and I live be-
cause of the Father, so he that eateth me,
he also shall live because of me." In the
words of another,^ "To eat his flesh and
1 Fichte in "The Way towards the Blessed Life."
48 THE GREATEST THING
drink his blood means to become wholly
and entirely he himself; to become alto-
gether changed into his person without re-
serve or limitation ; to be a faithful repetition
of him in another personality; to be tran-
substantiated with him, />., as he is the
Eternal Word made flesh and blood, to
become his flesh and blood, and what
follows from that, and indeed is the same
thing, to become the very Eternal Word
made flesh and blood itself; to think wholly
and entirely like him, and so as if he him-
self thought and not we ; to live wholly and
entirely like him, and so as if he himself
lived in our life. As surely as you do not
now attempt to drag down my own words,
and reduce them to the narrow meaning
that Jesus is only to be imitated, as an
unattainable pattern, partially and at a dis-
tance, as far as human weakness will allow,
but accept them in the sense in which I
have spoken them, that we must be trans-
formed into Christ himself, so surely will
it become evident to you that Jesus could
not well have expressed himself otherwise,
and that he actually did express himself
excellently well. Jesus was very far from
EVER KNOWN 49
representing himself as that unattainable
ideal into which he was first transformed
by the spiritual poverty of the after-ages;
nor did his apostles so regard him."
To live in Christ is to live the life he
lived, by living in the truth in which he
lived and which he taught. The one great
truth in which he continually lived was, as
we have seen, that only in conscious union
with God is there any real life, and therefore
we can readily see why he continually gave
out, as the Gospel writers tell us so many
times he did, that his especial «nission was
to preach the glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. Were it not possible for us to live
the same life that he lived, he certainly
would not have taught what he taught.
This wonderful life of fully realised Divine
life Jesus claims not for himself alone, but
for all who actually live in the truth that
he taught.
It was not to establish any material in-
stitution, as the church, that Jesus made his
mission, but that the kingdom of God and
His righteousness should become actualised
and hold sway in the minds and hearts of
men — this was his mission, an entirely
50 THE GREATEST THING
different thing from the founding of a
material organisation. Paul and his party,
sharing the then prevailing ideas that a
material kingdom was to be established,
were the originators of the church, not
Jesus. We find the word "church" men-
tioned in the four Gospels by Jesus only
once or twice, and then only in an incidental
way, while we find the kingdom mentioned
over thirty times in the first three Gospels
alone.
As we have already pointed out, had it
been his purpose to establish a material
organisation, then he certainly would not
have given it out that something else was
his especial purpose. But when the material
organisation, the church, purely a man-made
institution, was established, the early church
fathers bringing even interpolations of the
Holy Word to their aid in establishing it
and some of its various observations, — as
modern scholarship has already so clearly
discovered, and as it is continually discover-
ing, — the following ages, thinking that they
had an institution to keep up, gradually lost,
to a greater or less extent, the real spiritual
teachings of the Master in their zeal to keep
EVER KNOWN 51
up the form of an institution with which he
had nothing to do. And those long and
bitter persecutions of the church in the
early and middle ages, as well as the long
list of crimes sanctioned and committed
directly by the church of the middle ages,
show that they had not the real truth ; for
those who live in the truth and have it
uppermost in their minds and hearts never
persecute — only those who are on either
uncertain or false ground, and whose en-
deavour it is to keep up the form of an
institution which they feel would otherwise
fall to the ground.
No, true religion has never been known
either to persecute or to show intolerance
of any kind. Throughout the whole history
of the churches' heresies and persecutions,
the persecuted party has ever occupied a
correspondingly higher and the persecuting
party a lower position, the persecuting party
continually fighting as it were for life. But
the real truth that Jesus taught will not
cause nor will it even permit persecutions —
hence we find the latter only where there
is the lack of the former.
And again, the real truth that Jesus taught
52 THE GREATEST THING
will not admit of divisions, much less of
intolerance, for all real truth is exact truth,
and in regard to it there can be no differ-
ences, and our modern theologians, and our
churches of to-day, which get their form
and life from the speculations and theories
of the former, certainly have not the real
truth that Jesus taught, for they are divided
in various directions on practically every
dogma that they seek to promulgate. And
strange as it may seem, heresy trials, with
all their absurd attendant features, are not
entirely unknown even yet to-day. But in
Jesus' own words, "A house divided against
itself cannot stand." And so if the church
of to-day wants to stand as a real power in
the world, or if indeed it wants to stand at
all, it must either get back to, or it must come
up, as the case may be, to the real living
truth that Jesus lived and taught. Unless
it does this it will inevitably lose its hold
on the people even more rapidly than it is
losing it to-day. And certainly the younger
ones whom it does not yet hold will not be
drawn to it, when they can turn to that which
has a thousand-fold more of truth and hence
of life-giving power than it has to offer.
EVER KNOWN 53
That this is not a mere sentiment on our
part is evidenced by the wonderful rapidity
with which the " New Thought " movement
— would that we could designate what we
mean without using any term — which has,
as its underlying truth, this conscious union
with the Divine Life and the actualised
powers attendant upon it as Jesus taught, —
hence not a new discovery, but a recovery,
— is growing in America, in England, to be
brief, in practically every civilised country
in the world. Thousands every year in our
own and in other countries are finding in
it the joys of the realised Divine Life, and
are turning to it from that which but poorly
feeds them ; and that this also is no mere
sentiment on our part is evidenced by the
contents of a letter recently sent by a noted
divine in high official standing in the church
in England to a noted American preacher,
in which he said, in substance, that the
church in England is literally honeycombed
by the " New Thought " movement, and
asked that he might have sent a list of the
best books that had already appeared in
America along the lines indicated.
And so what we need tg-day is the same
54 THE GREATEST THING
as what the word is eagerly calling for, the
life-giving power of the great central truth
that the Master taught, and not the various
theories and speculations in regard to his
origin, his birth, his life, and the meaning of
his teachings. And still less, the fabrications
of the early fathers in regard to inherited sin,
original sin, vicarious atonement, and their
belie ve-and-be-saved doctrine, and the al-
ternative doctrine, fail to believe that which
is opposed to all reason, all common-sense,
all real mercy, as well as all true justice, and
be damned, be forever and eternally lost.
Jesus is indeed a lamb of God that taketh
away the sins of the world, but he takes tlicm
away by bringing to the world the truth that
shall make men free. Hence it is through
his life and the truth that he lived and
taught, not through his death and the
observance of the various ceremonies and
forms that have grown up around it. Those
who are aided by symbols — and I am aware
of the fact that for some, many hallowed
associations are connected with them — may
do well to make use of them until they
outgrow the need for them. But symbols
EVER KNOWN 55
are of value only where the real thing is not,
and those who have the real thing no longer
have need for symbols. "But the hour
Cometh," said Jesus, "and now is "(since I
have brought you the real spirit of truth),
"when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and truth ; for such doth
the Father seek to be His worshippers.
God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him
must worship in spirit and truth."
Jesus, according to his own words, did
not propose to rest satisfied with the mere
historical belief \\\dX he was the Eternal Word
made flesh, and much less, as some phases
of theology teach, that reconciliation with
the Father, as ordinarily understood, was his
purpose. God would adopt no methods in
connection with His children that are op-
posed to ftieir own reason. Nor would He
adopt any partial, limited, or tribal methods.
And if, as various theologians would have
us believe, that reconciliation with the Father
can come about only by a belief in the shed-
ding of the material, physical blood of Jesus,
that through it the Father may receive satis-
faction for His favour, how is it in regard
to the great company of those who cannot
56 THE GREATEST THING
accept a theory so absurd, so illogical, and
so opposed to the nature of the living God
whom they knoiv, and about whom they
no longer have to speculate and theorise,
to say nothing of the millions upon millions
of those who never have heard, and other
millions who never can hear, of the man
Jesus and the story of his blood "shed for
the sins of the world," nine-tenths of whom,
for good reasons, would not believe it if they
did hear it? No, these fabrications cannot
be true, for " in every nation, he that feareth
God and worketh righteousness is accepted
of Him." And so one may be without con-
nection with any church, and even without
connection with any established religion, and
yet be in spirit, hence in reality, a much
truer Christian than hosts of those who
profess to be his most ardent followers, as
indeed Jesus himself so many times says.
"By Xheir fruits ye shall know them," said
he. "Not every one that saith unto me.
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven."
That which calls itself Christianity must
prove itself, and only that which shows forth
EVER KNOWN 57
in its life the works, the power, the influence
— the truth that Jesus' life showed forth — is
the real. " He that believeth on me," said
Jesus, — and shows it by living my life, —
" the works that I do shall he do also ; and
greater works than these shall he do because
I go unto the Father." And he who would
know by what authority Jesus spoke, let him
live the life that he lived and he will then
know of the doctrine. Thus and thus only
can it be known. We may speculate and
theorise in regard to it, but only by living
the life can we k7ww it.
58 THE GREATEST THING
IV
THE philosopher's RIPEST LIFE THOUGHT
T ET US now see how the truths we have
already set forth stand in reference to
the thought of the philosopher Fichte.
Truth, the highest truth, and truth for its
own sake, was the one supreme object of his
life. And in order to discern this clearly him-
self, that he in turn might point it out clearly
to others, he stood erect and alone, free from
connection with any institution, organisation,
or system of thought that would distort or
limit his vision and induce him either inten-
tionally or unintentionally to interpret truth
by bending it to suit the tenets of the system
of thought or the institution to which he
might be, even though inadvertently, bound.
It was of Fichte that an eminent English
scholar once said : ^' Far above the dark
vortex of theological strife in which punier
intellects chafe and vex themselves in vain,
Fichte struggles forward in the sunshine of
pure thought which sectarianism cannot see,
EVER KNOWN 59
because its weakened vision is already filled
with a borrowed and imperfect light." —
It is, moreover, always of value to know
how the truth that one finds and endeavours
to give to others finds embodiment in his
own life, for this is the sure and unfailing
test of its vitality, if not indeed of its reality.
A word or two, therefore, in reference to the
life of Fichte may not be inappropriate here,
a word or two from the same eminent
English scholar quoted above, the trans-
lator of his works from the German to the
English, for he knew well his life as he_
knew also his philosophy. "We prize his'^
philosophy deeply," says he; "it is to us
an invaluable possession, for it seems the
noblest exposition to which we have yet
Hstened of human nature and divine truth ;
but with reverent thankfulness we acknow-
ledge a still higher debt, for he has left
behind him the best gift which man can
bequeath to man — a brave, heroic human
life." " "' ^
" In the strong reality of his life, — in his
intense love for all things beautiful and true,
— in his incorruptible integrity and heroic
devotion to the right, we see a living mani-
> OF THE
6o THE GREATEST THING
festation of his principles. His life is the
true counterpart of his philosophy — it is that
of a strong, free, incorruptible man."
And now to a few paragraphs of Fichte's
thought bearing more or less directly upon
the theme immediately in hand. After set-
ting forth in a very comprehensive manner
the truth in regard to Being, which he
identifies with Life much in the same
general manner as we have already en-
deavoured to set it forth, and then after
making it clear that by God he means this
Infinite Being, this Spirit of Infinite Life,
he says :
"God alone is, and nothing besides him,
— a principle which, it seems to me, may
be easily comprehended, and which is the
indispensable condition of all religious in-
sight."
"But beyond this mere empty and
imaginary conception, and as we have
carefully set forth this matter above, God
enters into us in his actual, true, and
immediate life, — or, to express it more
strictly, we ourselves are this his immediate
EVER KNOWN 6i
Life. But we are not conscious of this
immediate Divine Life ; and since, as we
have also already seen, our own Existence
— that which properly belongs to us — is that
only which we can embrace in consciousness,
so our Being in God, notwithstanding that
at bottom it is indeed ours, remains never-
theless forever foreign to us, and thus, in
deed and truth, to ourselves is not our Being ;
we are in no respect the better of this insight,
and remain as far removed as ever from God.
We know nothing of this immediate Divine
Life, I said ; for even at the first touch of
consciousness it is changed into a dead
World. . . . The form forever veils the
substance from us ; our vision itself conceals
its object; our eye stands in its own light.
I say unto thee who thus complainest :
' Raise thyself to the standing-point of
Religion, and all these veils are drawn
aside; the World, with its dead principle,
disappears from before thee, and the God-
head once more resumes its place within
thee, in its first and original form, as Life, —
as thine own Life, which thou oughtest to
live and shalt live.'"
In setting forth how universally Divine
62 THE GREATEST THING
Being incarnates itself in human Life, he
says : " From the first standing-point the
Eternal Word becomes flesh, assumes a
personal, sensible, and human existence,
without obstruction or reserve, in all times,
and in every individual man who has a living
insight into his unity with God, and who
actually and in truth gives up his personal
life to the Divine Life within him, — precisely
in the same way as it became incarnate in
Jesus Christ."
Speaking, then, of the great fundamental
fact that the truth that Jesus himself
perceived and gave to the world, and also
of the manner whereby he came into the
perception of it, he says : "Jesus of Nazareth
undoubtedly possessed the highest perception
containing the foundation of all other Truth,
of the absolute identity of Humanity with
the Godhead, as regards what is essentially
real in the former."
"His self-consciousness was at once the
pure and absolute Truth of Reason itself,
self-existent and independent, the simple
fact of consciousness."
• ••»• *••
Then in showing that Jesus as he is pre-
EVER KNOWN 63
sented to us by the apostle John never con-
ceived of his Hfe in any other Hght than
as one with the Father's Life, he says :
" But it is precisely the most prominent and
striking trait in the character of the Johannean
Jesus, ever recurring in the same shape, that
he will know nothing of such a separation
of his personality from his Father, and that
he earnestly rebukes others who attempt
to make such a distinction ; while he con-
stantly assumes that he who sees him sees
the Father, that he who hears him hears the
Father, and that he and the Father are
wholly one ; and he unconditionally denies
and rejects the notion of an independent
being in himself, such an unbecoming
elevation of himself having been made an
objection against him by misunderstanding.
To him Jesus was not God, for to him there
was no independent Jesus whatever; but
God was Jesus, and manifested himself as
Jesus."
To show, then, that this is a universal
truth, brought in its fulness, and with a liv-
ing exemplified vitality, first to the world by
Jesus, but by no means applicable to him
alone, he says : " An insight into the absolute
64 THE GREATEST THING
unity of the Human Existence with the
Divine is certainly the profoundest Know-
ledge that man can attain. Before Jesus
this Knowledge had nowhere existed ; and
since his time, we may say, even down to
the present day, it has been again as good
as rooted out and lost, at least in profane
literature."
That we must come into the same living
realisation of this great transcendent truth
that Jesus came into, either through his
teaching and exemplified realisation of it, or
through whatever channel it may come, he
clearly indicates by the following : " The
living possession of the theory we have now
set forth — not the dry, dead, and merely
historical knowledge of it — is, according to
our doctrine, the highest, and indeed the
only possible, Blessedness."
"The Metaphysical only, and not the
Historical, can give us Blessedness; the
latter can only give us understanding. If
iany man be truly united with God, and dwell
in him, it is altogether an indifferent thing
how he may have reached this state ; and it
would be a most useless and perverse em-
ployment, instead of living in the thing, to
EVER KNOWN 65
be continually repeating over our recollec-
tions of the way. Could Jesus return into
the world, we might expect him to be
thoroughly satisfied, if he found Christianity
actually reigning in the minds of men,
whether his merit in the work were recog-
nised or overlooked ; and this is, in fact, the
very least that might be expected from a
man who, while he lived on earth, sought
not his own glory, but the glory of him who
sent him."
And what in the eyes of Fichte are the
results that follow and hence the tests of
the genuineness of this higher realisation,
this True Religion, as he sometimes terms
it ? His words in this connection are : " True
Religion, notwithstanding that it raises the
view of those who are inspired by it to its own
region, nevertheless retains their Life firmly
in the domain of action, and of right moral
action. The true and real Religious Life is
not alone percipient and contemplative, does
not merely brood over devout thoughts, but
is essentially active. It consists, as we have
seen, in the intimate consciousness that God
actually lives, moves, and perfects his work
in us. If therefore there is in us no real
66 THE GREATEST THING
Life, if no activity and no visible work pro-
ceed forth from us, then is God not active in
us. Our consciousness of union with God
is then deceptive and vain, and the empty
shadow of a condition that is not ours;
perhaps the general, but lifeless, insight that
such a condition is possible, and in others
may be actual, but that we ourselves have,
nevertheless, not the least portion in it."
" Religion does not consist in mere devout
dreams, I said : Religion is not a business
by and for itself, which a man may practise
apart from his other occupations, perhaps
on certain fixed days and hours; but it is
the inmost spirit that penetrates, inspires,
and pervades all our Thought and Action,
which in other respects pursue their ap-
pointed course without change or interrup-
tion. That the Divine Life and Energy
actually lives in us is inseparable from
Religion, I said."
To show, then, how completely at one in
his or her consciousness this truly religious
man or woman becomes, how his or her
own personal will is lost in, and so trans-
muted into, the Divine Will, as also the
calmness and tranquillity with which his or
EVER KNOWN 67
her life forever thereafter flows along, he
says : " The expression of the constant
mind of the truly Moral and Religious
man is this prayer : ' Lord ! let but thy
will be done, then is mine also done; for
I have no other will than this — that thy
will be done."
"This Divine Life now continually de-
velops itself within him, without hindrance
or obstruction, as it can and must develop
itself only in him and his individuality;
this alone it is that he properly wills; his
will is therefore always accomplished, and it
is absolutely impossible that anything con-
trary to it should ever come to pass."
"Whatever comes to pass around him,
nothing appears to him strange or un-
accountable — he knows assuredly, whether
he understand it or not, that it is in God's
World, and that there nothing can be that
does not directly tend to Good. In him
there is no fear for the Future, for
the absolute fountain of all Blessedness
eternally bears him on towards it; no
sorrow for the Past, for in so far as he
was not in God he was nothing, and this
is now at an end, and since he has dwelt
68 THE GREATEST THING
in God he has been bom into Light;
while in so far as he was in God, that
which he has done is assuredly right and
good. He has never aught to deny him-
self, nor aught to long for; for he is at
all times in eternal possession of the ful-
ness of all that he is capable of enjoying.
For him all labour and effort have vanished ;
his whole Outward Existence flows forth,
softly and gently, from his Inward Being,
and issues out into Reality without difficulty
or hindrance."
Speaking, then, of how we may at once
enter into and live in the full realisation
of this real life, and also of those who,
instead of entering immediately into the
Kingdom and thus finding the highest
happiness and joy here and now, are
expecting to find it in its completeness
after the transition we call death, he says :
"Full surely indeed there lies a Blessed-
ness beyond the grave for those who have
already entered upon it here, and in no
other form or way than that by which they
can already enter upon it here in this
moment; but by mere burial man cannot
arrive at Blessedness — and in the future
EVER KNOWN 69
life, and throughout the whole infinite
range of all future life, they would seek
for happiness as vainly as they have already
sought it here, if they were to seek it in
aught else than in that which already sur-
rounds them so closely here below that
throughout Eternity it can never be brought
nearer to them — in the Infinite. And thus
does the poor child of Eternity, cast forth
from his native home, and surrounded on
all sides by his heavenly inheritance which
yet his trembling hand fears to grasp,
wander with fugitive and uncertain step
throughout the waste, everywhere labouring
to establish for himself a dwelling place,
but happily ever reminded, by the speedy
downfall of each of his successive habita-
tions, that he can find peace nowhere but
in his Father's house."
Finally, speaking of how completely doubt
and uncertainty are eliminated from the life
of him who through the realisation of the
truth we have set forth becomes thereby
centred in the Infinite, he says: "The
Religious man is forever secured from the
possibility of doubt and uncertainty. In
every moment he knows distinctly what he
70 THE GREATEST THING
wills, and ought to will; for the innermost
root of his life — his will — forever flows forth
from the Divinity, immediately and without
the possibility of error ; its indication is in-
fallible, and for that indication he has an
infallible perception. In every moment he
knows that in all Eternity he shall know
what he shall will, and ought to will ; that
in all Eternity the fountain of Divine Love
which has burst forth in him shall never
be dried up, but shall uphold him securely
and bear him on forever."
Such, then, in general, are fragments of
the thought, and, let it be added, the ripest
thought, of one who has exerted perhaps as
great a direct influence upon the life of his
own immediate as well as succeeding ages as
any man who has ever lived. It is to Fichte
that, to a very great extent, the German Em-
pire owes the splendid educational system
it has to-day. His thought began to exert
its influence at the time when its educational
system was falling into a state of chaos, and
even the Empire itself by virtue of its recent
losses was in a more or less uncertain
condition. And, acting to a greater or less
extent through the minds of Froebel and
EVER KNOWN 71
Pestalozzi, his thought has aided in giving
to the world the truest type of education
it has yet seen, that that we know under
the name kindergarten, which is slowly but
surely working to revolutionise our present
educational methods, which stand so sadly
in need of a change even so radical.
If the truth and vitality of a man's thought
are to be judged by its permanent as well as
its immediate influence, surely the thought
of Fichte found its life in the realms of the
highest truth, through which alone real
vitality comes, for it has exerted and is still
exerting a most powerful life-giving influence,
an influence, indeed, that will never end.
72 THE GREATEST THING
SUSTAINED IN PEACE AND SAFETY FOREVER
A T what now have we arrived, and what
has been the process? From our
own reason and insight, independently of
all outside authority, we have found the
great truth that a living insight into the
fact of the essential unity of the human
life with the Divine Life is the profoundest
knowledge that man can attain to. This
as a mere intellectual perception, however,
as a mere dead theory, amounts to but
little, if indeed, to anything at all, as far as
bearing fruit in every-day life is concerned.
It is the vital, living realisation of this
great transcendent truth in the life of each
one that makes it a mighty moving and
moulding force in his life.
Then we have also found that this same
great truth was the great central fact of
both the life and the teachings of one
who comes as authority to practically all
the world, the Christ Jesus. That this was
EVER KNOWN ^i
the one great truth in which he continually
lived, that it was the secret of his unusual
insight and power, and that it was also the
great truth that he came to bring to the
world, he distinctly tells us. That it was
not only what he proclaimed that he came
to teach, but also what he distinctly taught,
we have likewise found.
We have found also that the ripest life
thought of the philosopher Fichte — whose
spiritual vision was so fully unfolded as
to enable him to give to the world such
a remarkable blending of the intellectual
and the spiritual in his philosophy — was
almost if not identically the same in refer-
ence to this great truth, as was also his
thought in regard to the life and the power
as well as the mission of Jesus.
And when I see day after day the wonder-
ful results that follow in the lives of those
who have entered into this living realisation,
then I know that Jesus knew whereof he
spoke when he gave the injunction, "Seek
ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous-
ness, and all these things shall be added
unto you." Moreover, I do not believe, but
74 THE GREATEST THING
/ know^ that whoever through this realisa-
tion thus finds the kingdom of God will
find his words — that all else will follow
— literally and absolutely as well as neces-
sarily true. All will follow in a perfectly
natural and normal manner, in full accord-
ance with natural spiritual law.
He who goes thus directly to the mountain
top will find all things spread out before
him in the valley below. He who thus
becomes centred in the Infinite will find
that to the same centre whence his inner
life issues, all things pertaining to his outer
material life will in turn be drawn. The
beauty of holiness is one with the beauty
of wholeness. To know but the One Life
is to live in the fact and the beauty of
wholeness; and where wholeness is, there
no lack of anything will be found.
If what we ordinarily term our Christian
churches, and if the preachers who stand
in their pulpits, would fully and universally
give themselves to the real message that
Jesus gave to the world, then we would
find that "the common people" would go
to them and hear them gladly ; there would
then be no hard pressing social situation to
EVER KNOWN 75
face, for the people would then have a living
knowledge of the one great truth through
which all other things would come.
This great transcendent truth, however,
that was the very essence of the life and the
teachings of Jesus, has been even in our
churches as good as rooted out and lost.
And shall we conclude that because it is prac-
tically lost the greater part of the time and at-
tention of the preacher in the large majority
of them is given to the empty, barren, incon-
sequential themes it is given to? Or is it
because so much time and attention is given
to the latter that there is no time left for the
former? However this may be, it certainly is
true that that to a greater or less extent to-day
we find identically the same conditions that
Jesus found, and that he continually tried so
hard to do away with. " Full well," said he,
"ye reject the commandment of God, that
ye may keep your own tradition."
Many a student comes from our theologi-
cal schools so steeped in theological specu-
lations and in denominational dogmas that
he hasn't the slightest conception of what
the real mission of Jesus was. What
wonder, then, that the church to which he
76 THE GREATEST THING
goes soon becomes a dead shell from which
the life has gone, into which those in love
with life will no longer enter, a church whose
chief concern very soon is, how to raise the
minister's stipend? But once let these minor
and inconsequential, not to say at times petty,
foolish, and absurd, things be dropped, and
let all time and attention be given to the
great central truth that Jesus brought to the
world, and we shall find that during the next
one hundred years, ay, during the next fifty
years, what will then be real Christianity
will make more progress than what is now
termed Christianity has made during all the
nineteen hundred years it has been in the
world. The fact that during all these
hundreds of years it has not accomplished
more than it has is quite good evidence
that something essential is lacking in it.
The real soul-cry even of all Christendom
to-day is the same as the injunction given by
the native ministers of Japan to a noted
representative of the Christian religion as he
was leaving there not long ago : " Send us
no more doctrines : we are tired of them.
Send us Christ." And the only way that
Christ can be sent is by sending the great
EVER KNOWN 77
central truth that he brought to the world, a
truth so world-wide^ so universal^ that, so far
even as the so-called various great religions
are concerned, in regard to it there can be
no differences, for from its very nature it is
at the very foundation, indeed, the very life
essence, of them all. And so it is true in this
sense that there is essentially but one religion,
the religion of the living God. For to live
in the conscious realisation of the fact that
God lives in us, is indeed the life of our life,
and that in ourselves we have no independent
life, and hence no power, is the one great
fact of all true religion, even as it is the one
great fact of human life. Religion, therefore,
at its purest, and life at its truest, are essenti-
ally and necessarily one and the same.
It is only through this living realisation of
the essential unity of our life with the Father's
life that true blessedness, and even true
peace and happiness, can be found. The
sooner, then, that we come into it, and thus
live the life of the spirit, the better, for
neither will they come nor can they be found
in any other way. There is, moreover, no
time either in this form of life, or in any
other form, when we can any more readily
78 THE GREATEST THING
come into It, and thereby into all that follows,
than we can at this very moment. And
when this fountain of Divine Life is once
fully opened within us, it can never again
be dried up, and we can rest assured that it
will at all times uphold us in peace and
bear us on in safety. And however strange
or unaccountable at times occurrences may
appear, we can rest in a triumphant security,
knowing that only good can come, for in
God's life there is only good, and in God's
life we are now living, and there we shall
live forever.
EVER KNOWN 79
A Method
There is a simple method which will aid
us greatly in coming into the realisation we
have been considering. So simple is it that
thousands and indeed millions have passed
it by, looking, as is so generally our custom,
for agencies of at least apparently greater
power; we so frequently and so universally
forget that the greatest things in life are
the most simple.
The method is this : wherever you are,
whatever doing, walking along the street or
through the fields, at work of any kind, falling
off to or awaking from sleep, setting about
any undertaking, in doubt as to what course
to pursue at any particular time, in brief,
whatever it may be, carry with you this
thought: It is the Father that worketh in
me, my Father works and I work. This
is the thought so continually used by Jesus,
who came into probably the fullest realisation
of the oneness of his life with the God-life
that any one who has lived in the world
thus far has come into, and it is given
8o THE GREATEST THING
because it is so simple. From it each can
make his own formula. Jesus' term was
"the Father." Many will likewise find
themselves naturally using the same term
and will find it becoming very precious to
them. Others will find themselves using
other terms for the same conception and
thought : It is the Father that worketh in
me, my Father works and I work. In other
words, It is the spirit of Infinite Life and
Power that is behind all, working in and
through all, the life and animating power
of all, — God, — that worketh in me, and I
do as I am directed and empowered by It.
In this way we open ourselves, and become
consciously awake to the Infinite Life and
Power that is ever waiting and ready to
direct and work in our lives, if we will merely
put ourselves into the attitude whereby It
can work in them. In this way we open
ourselves so that It can speak and manifest
to and through us. This It is ever ready
to do if we will but make for It the right
conditions. By carrying with us this
thought, by holding ourselves in this attitude
of mind consciously for a while, by repeating
it even in so many words now and then at
EVER KNOWN 8i
first, we will find it in time becoming our
habitual thought, and will find ourselves
living in it without the conscious effort that
we have to make at first, and we will in time
find ourselves almost unconsciously living in
it continually. Thus God as a living pres-
ence, as a guiding, animating power, becomes
an actuality in our lives. The conscious
presence of God in our lives, which is
the essence, indeed the sum and substance
of all religion, then becomes a reality, and
all wisdom and all power will be given us as
we are able to appropriate and use them
wisely; if for merely selfish, personal ends,
they will be withheld ; if for the greatest aid
and service for the world, we will find them
continually increasing.
With this higher realisation comes more
and more the simple, child-like spirit. With
Jesus we realise — Of myself I can do nothing,
it is the Father within me that doeth His
work. In ourselves we are and can do
nothmg ; in God we can do all things. We
never can be in the condition — in God —
until through this higher realisation God
becomes a conscious^ living reality in our
lives.
82 THE GREATEST THING
Faithfulness to this simple method will
bring about a complete change in great
numbers of lives. Each one for himself can
test its efficacy in a very short time. It is
the highway upon which many will enter
and which will take them by easy stages into
the realisation of the highest life that can be
attained to. To set one's face in the right
direction, and then simply to travel on, will
in time bring him into the realisation of
the highest life that can be even conceived
of — it is the secret of all attainment.
For further suggestions as to the method of entering into
this higher realisation, as also for a much fuller portrayal of
its results in every-day life, the reader is directed to the volume
by the same author entitled, "In Tune with the Infinite; or,
Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty."
By RALPH WALDO TRINE.
"The Life Books."
What All the World's A-Seeking.
Its purpose is distinctly practical. It is most fas-
cinatingly written, and deserves the remarkable suc-
cess it has achieved. — The Review of Reviews.
The volume abounds in passages of great beauty
and strength; but the striking feature of the book
is, after all, the solid, sensible, healthy exposition of
the one theme it is written to enforce. — New York
Independent.
This is a book among a thousand for its inspiring
message, and is eminently worthy of a vast audience.
You will miss much if you miss reading its truth-
laden pages. — Cumberland Presbyterian.
In Tune With the Infinite.
It is one of the simplest, clearest ^vorks ever writ-
ten, dealing with the power of the interior forces in
moulding the every-day conditions of life. — San
Francisco Bulletin.
... It immediately suggests the works of Drum-
mond, but shows a decided advance upon the ground
Avhich he made familiar to mankind ; it not only re-
veals the author's recognition of spiritual law, but in
certain instances shows his rare and remarkable un-
derstanding of the nature and action of such law;
the preface alone shows his high intuition, and the
book proves his ability to achieve his purpose in a
marvellous degree. — Boston Daily Evening Tran-
script.
Mr. Trine can write well upon such topics as this.
He is alive, vigorous, cheery, confident. The work
has distinctiveness in its style and method. — The
Literary Worlds Londoii.
The above books are beautifully and durably bound
in gray-green raised cloth, statnfed in deep
old-green and gold y with gilt top.
Price, $/.25 per volume.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO..
NEW YORK.
By RALPH WALDO TRINE.
The " Life" Booklets.
The Greatest Thing Ever Known.
The moment we fully and vitally realize -who and
what we are Ave then begin to build our own world
even as God builds His. — From Title-page.
... It unfolds the secret of our underlying-
strength, and shows what it is that gives us power
to fulfil the real and living purooses of our being.
— The New Christianity.
Every Living Creature.
The tender and humane passion in the human
heart is too precious a quality to allow it to be
hardened or effaced by practices such as we so often
indulge in. — From Title-page.
An eloquent appeal and an able argument for
justice and mercy to our dumb fellow-creatures. A
good book for those whose characters are being
formed, and for all who love justice and right. —
Religio-Philosophical journal.
Character-Building Thought Power.
A thought, good or evil, an act, in time a habit,
so runs life's law; what you live in your thought-
world, that, sooner or later, you w'll find objectified
in your life. — From Title-page.
In " Character-Building Thought Power" Mr.
Trine demonstrates the power of mental habits,
and shows how by daily effort we may train our-
selves into right ways of thinking ar i acting. His
teachings are sound, practical, and of priceless
worth. — Albany Press.
Bound in an exceedingly attractive and handy
form. Price, S5 cents per volume.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,
NEW YORK.
14 DAY USE
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
EDUCATION-PSYCHOLOGY
LIBRARY
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or
on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
JUL 2 2 REC'D- Wii
MOV 28 1972
DEC 88 1972
DEC 1 g REC'D -9 /
M-
SEP 1 Q 1974
8ECD ORC C^T SEPi feV*
SEP 1 8 REC'D -9 A!y
OU r 2 1992
SUBJECT TO RECALL
LD 21A-30m-6.'67
(H2472sl0)476
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